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Baked Egg Oral Immunotherapy Trials

(This is a continuation of a series of posts on our experiences as we trial our son who has multiple food allergies with oral food challenges at home. Oral food challenges should always be performed under direct medical supervision based on each patients individual reaction history. Please do not try oral food challenges at home on your own without medical approval.)
After our son had an allergic reaction while trialing baked eggs during an oral food challenge, we found ourselves with more questions than we had answers.
Did he really react to the baked egg? Could he have reacted to something environmental? What if a mild cold caused his breathing difficulties that night. Should we try the baked egg challenge again since he safely ate baked eggs the month before with no reaction?
The next morning we called our son’s allergist. With all the questions and outside factors that could have affected our baked egg challenge, he wanted to try the baked egg challenge again after Colton cleared up.
Our allergist explained to us that the immune system is like an empty cup that slowly fills with each allergen received until the cup runs over and a reaction occurs, and it doesn’t necessarily take just one large dose of one allergen to create a reaction, but many small doses of many allergens can cause a reaction. This is what he believed happened to Colton.
This week he wants to continue the baked egg oral food challenge with Colton, essentially beginning a baked egg oral immunotherapy trial to help Colton develop a tolerance to baked egg, and possibly even regular egg.

Baked Egg Oral Immunotherapy Trials

In an article in The Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI), baked egg challenges were performed and those children who tolerated baked egg added baked egg products to their diet on a regular basis.
In this study, 89% of the 79 subjects now tolerate baked egg and 53% now tolerate regular egg. The results of this study confirm that a majority of egg-allergic children tolerate baked egg and indicate that long-term ingestion of baked egg is well tolerated and accelerates the development of regular egg tolerance compared with strict avoidance.Source: American Academy of Allergy Asthma and ImmunotherapyHas your allergist recommended oral immunotherapy trials for you or your children with food allergies?Image courtesy of Flickr.DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or healthcare professional. This is simply a recount of our personal experience. Always check with a doctor about any allergy-related issues.
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